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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. IX
vated by Mr. Oertel in 1905. On the inner cavity of the fragment Brahmi inscription was engraved in four lines, the fourth running along the rim. The inscription, which is complete, covers the whole inner surface of the fragment, and the umbrella had therefore probably been broken when it was engraved.
The fragment is 174" long and 54 broad, and the umbrella to which it belongs must have had a diameter of nearly six feat. The letters are deeply cut, and their height varies from to 4 inches.
The characters are Brahmi of the second or third century A.D. The forms of ma ånd sa are ancient, and the same is the case with ya. The shape of individual letters is not, however, constunt. Thus the na of imani, 1.1, differs from the na in gamini, 1. 4; the du in dukkha in lines 2, 3 and 4 has different shapes; the dha of nirodho, 1.3, is angular, while it has been rounded in 1.4. eto. The form of the compound kkcha is of some interest, the kha being open at the bottom. In bhikkhave, 1.1, however, the bottom line has apparently been added by mistake under the following v8. The two kkhas in 1. 2 differ from each other, and, on the whole, the form of this ligatare is not the same in any two places.
The language is the PAli of Buddhist literature, but with several misspellings, and other mistakes. Thus in 1. 2, we find dikkhand instead of bhikkhave, and ardy asachchan, 1. 3 ariyayachchan, and in 1. 4 arisachohan, all instead of ariyasachchan. These slips, taken together with the uncertainty in the formation of the individual letters, can only be accounted for by the supposition that the inscription was cut by an engraver who did not understand the orginal. The occasional introduction of the Sanskrit saudhi in -samudaya ariyaya(a)chchan, 1. 3, points in the same direction.
The inscription contains a short enameration of the four ariyasachchas, the fundamental doctrines of the Buddhas. These four truths form the essence of the famons Benares germon, and our inscription is accordingly very appropriate in the spot where the Buddha first "turned the wheel of the law." In this connection it is of interest to note that the great majority of the statues unearthed in Sarnath represent the Buddhs in the Dharmachakramudra, delivering his first sermon. The enumeration of the four noble truths or axioms is of the same conventional kind which is so common in Pali literature, and though I have not found the exact quotation, I do not doubt that the passage out on the stone is meant as a quotation from the Canon. Our inscription, therefore, farnishes a valuable epigraphical proof for the existence of a PAli Canon in the second or third century A.D. It is also of interest as the first old Pali inscription found in North Indis. I here take the word PAli to mean the language of the Southern Canon, the only use of the word which I consider as justified.
TEXT. 1 Chatt[&]r-imani bhikkhave ar[io]yasachchani 2 katamani chhatteri dukkha[] di(bhi)kkhave ara(ri)yasachcha[min] 3. dakthasamudayal, ariyaya (sa)ohobar dakkbanirodh88 ariyasachoham 4 dukkhanirddha-gåmini chat patipada ari ya]sachchaí
TRANSLATION. Four, ye monks, are the noble axioms. And which are these four? The axiom (about) Buffering, ye monks; the axiom (about) the cause of suffering; the axiom (about) the sappreesion of suffering; and the aziom (about) the path leading to suppression of suffering.
1 From the original stone, . The stone perhaps has -irodha.
Read agudayé. The actual reading seems to be chole.
